Memoirs of The Elysion Priest
by Lovely Seraph
Summary: Helios tells his princess the story of their love, from the very beginning. This story is an epic tale of the Golden Kingdom.
1. Prologue, Here the Past and Future Meet

"Are you feeling well, my lady?"

Small Lady, no longer so small, looked up from her cup of tea. _Am I well? _she wondered. _I don't know. _"I have a lot on my mind," she confided to Helios.

Her darling priest smiled lovingly as he refilled her tea. "Do you wish to talk about?"

Serenity sighed. She wanted to talk. She did, but in truth what she _really_ wanted was space. She wanted Helios to stop pouring her tea for goodness sake. "Stop waiting on me, Helios. It's tiresome."

She almost felt guilty, seeing the embarrassed look on his face. He stopped of course and sat back down. "Habit," he apologized.

_Habit_. "This is exactly the sort of thing I'm worrying about..." She sighed, feeling like a spoiled child. "Sometimes I envy Mama and Papa. They are the stuff of legends... and look at us, bickering over who pours the tea."

Helios managed a tender laugh and reached to brush sugar pink bangs from her eyes. "Stuff of legends," he whispered sweetly. "_We_ are the stuff of legends."

"Not like they are." Serenity looked at her boyfriend tiredly.

"No," Helios agreed. "Perhaps not... But I think you discredit us. Our story has its own magic. Would you like to hear it, as I would tell it?"

She thought about it for a time and then nodded eagerly. Helios so rarely opened up about his past. Maybe now she would hear his side of things properly, finally... At last...

"Then sit back, my dear one... and I will tell you a love story that spans centuries..."

_Is this a couple's fate? It is starting now  
The link between the past and the future is here  
It will repeat...moonlight romance._

**~*~ Memoirs of the Elysion Priest~*~  
**

"It is hard for me to remember the past. Often my life feels as a dream within a dream..."

Serenity sat back and listened. This was bound to be good.


	2. Chapter 1, Taken

I was five years old when the maenads came for me. It feels so long ago now, a dream within a dream. When I was young I put so much energy into forgetting, but now I wish I could remember more. When I close my eyes to dream, sometimes I can still hear my mother's weeping.

They came for me on the eave of my fifth birthday. I ought to have been in bed, but I was too excited to sleep. My birthday fell right in the middle of the first harvest festival. Mother was going to take me to see the king's tourney. I'd never been to a tourney before. She said there would be great bonfires and sweet meats, and dancing...

We were poor, mother and I, a widow and her only child, but she wanted to make my fifth birthday something special, and I imagine... it would have been.

We never made it to the king's tourney. As I sat by the fire playing with my wooden knights, there was a loud knocking at the door. I watched mother reach for the door handle and carefully peer outside. I saw her face change. Her eyes widened, her rosy lips quivered.

I was afraid. I lost interest in my toys and watched the door.

"Open up!" I heard a deep voice. "In the name of the crown, let us in!"

My mother stepped back and I hid behind a chair.

There was a great deal whispering and sometimes shouting. My mother cried. I didn't understand what was happening at the time, but I would understand soon enough.

"Where is the child?" I heard a woman say. I couldn't see her face. She was wearing a heavy hooded cloak and the only part of her that was visible to me, were two long thick strands of silver hair. Pretty. Even though I was scared, I was also curious. I trusted my mother... So I poked my head out from behind the chair and waved my fingers timidly at the cloaked woman.

"What a beautiful child," the woman said in a stunned voice.

"There are none like him," my mother agree, sounding at once both proud and sorrowful. "He looks like his father."

"And he was born within the witching hour, on the third of August?"

"Yes," my mother wept.

The woman sounded most pleased when she spoke next. "Within the same hour as the prince. How unusual, most auspicious. It's too perfect to be real. You aren't lying to me, are you?"

"I am not..."

"It's true," I spoke up. I was excited to talk about my birthday. "Tomorrow's my birthday. We're going to the king's tourney! You're a pretty lady... do you want to see my toys. My mother _made_ them."

"He speaks very clearly," the man, a soldier, spoke for the first time since he and his hooded women intruded into our home. He had a funny face, one that I could only describe as _mean_ at the time. I glared at him with all my childish fury. I did not like him. He had a mean face and he was a mean man. He had _shouted_ at my mother.

"I'm very smart," I had the gull to say.

"I'm sure you are..."

The woman turned to me then and to my surprise and fear she lowered her hood. Her hair spilled out in waves. She had large pale eyes. Young as I was, I could still tell that she was blind. She was blind and yet she'd found me quite easily. She was starring right at me. I felt chilled, as if she was looking _inside_ of me. "He is a fool," she said. "But we will teach him."

"So... you are taking him?"

Taking me... _Taking me? _This woman and her soldier were going to _take _me?

"Where are we going?" I asked, voice trembling.

The woman knelt before me and held me with both of her hands on my shoulders. Again, I felt those vacant eyes on me. "Helios," she said. "You are a _very _special child. You can't stay here with your mother anymore." I began to cry. "You're needed by the _king_."

The king? Why did the king need _me_? "The king doesn't need me," I said, wet faced and trembling. "I'm just a little boy. I'm too small to be a knight..."

"You're not going to be a knight," the woman soothed. "You're going to be like _me_."

"What are you?" I asked. "Are you a _witch_?"

"No, child. I am a shrine maiden of Elysion. And if you study hard and do everything you are told, someday... Someday you will be a great priest, perhaps the greatest we have ever seen." She stood up and reached for her soldier who supported her and walked her to my mother's chair. "The king has a son exactly your age," she said. "You've heard of Prince Endymion?"

"Of course I have. Everyone knows about the prince." I was offended that she even had to ask. I wasn't stupid. I wasn't a fool... I looked for my mother. She was sitting on the floor crying into her hands. I didn't like it when she cried. I didn't want to go with those people. I walked to my mother and sat in her lap. "Stop crying, Mama. I'm not going. They can pick someone else."

My mother peaked at me past the cracks in her fingers. She stopped crying. I almost smiled, but she pushed me, then, knocking me back. "Take him away!" she screamed. "Do it now! Do it before I change my mind!"

She ran into her room and slammed the door shut. I heard it lock. I heard my mother crying. I banged on the door but she wouldn't talk to me. It wasn't fair!

"Mama! Mama! I don't want to go! Don't let them take me! Don't you love me? Mama!" The soldier plucked me up and threw me over his shoulder. I threw my fists. I kicked with my legs. It was all pointless. He was a solider, possibly even a knight... and I was only a child, a weak child at that.

They tied my hands together, to keep me from hitting, then I was given a cloak and instructed that I was _never_ under any circumstances to let anyone outside the temple see my face. It was an unusual rule, but I didn't dare question it.

We mounted our horses, the lovely shrine maiden on a horse of white, the soldier and I on a horse of black. I was so small and in the heavy cloak I could have passed as a sack of potatoes on his lap. No one noticed me. We rode all night and into the next day. Sometimes I slept against the soldier's chest, but mostly I cried. I cried and prayed that someone would see me, mark the soldier as a kidnapper, and rescue me, but of course that didn't happen.

I was exhausted by the time we reached the capitol. Despite my fears and misery, I was still a curious child. The capital city of the Golden Kingdom... It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. The first thing I noticed was the magnificent castle with its tall towers and banners waving in the noon sky. There were people everywhere, market stands, horses, children playing in the streets. It was like home but a million times larger and infinitely more beautiful. For the briefest moment I stopped being afraid and instead wanted more than anything to get away from the soldier and explore.

The soldier caught me looking and hit me before adjusting my cloak. "Stop moving about like that or you will be seen..."

"Why does it matter if I am seen?"

"You are going to be the next Priest of Elysion," he reminded me. "It's tradition, part of the mystery... You're not to be seen, not ever, except by the maenads and the royal family."

"But you see me..." I pointed out. "You're just a soldier."

He laughed at me. That mean faced man actually knew how to laugh. "I'll tell you a secret," he said. "I'm the king."

I can't even begin to express my surprise. I didn't believe him, not at first. I thought he was lying to me. I'd seen paintings of the king... The soldier was mean and ugly. The king was beautiful, wasn't he? "You're making that up," I told him.

"I'm wearing a glamor," he said to me.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I am in disguise, a _magical_ disguise."

Finally the horses stopped. The 'king' dismounted and carried me with him.

The capitol had been incredible, but _nothing_ could have prepared me for my first glimpse of the Elysion Temple. The tall white pillars and sleek marble floors... Everything looked _magical_. And the roses! They were everywhere! All I could do was stare. I stared and I stared with my mouth hanging open. "See," the 'king' said. "I think you are going to like it here."

I turned around to glare at him, because, even if it was pretty, there was no way I was going to like it here. I still wanted to go home. When I turned around, though... it wasn't the ugly mean faced man that I saw. He really _had_ been the king. The magic must have worn off, either that or he just didn't need it anymore. He looked at me with the kindest warmest smile I had ever seen and he really was just like the paintings. For some reason that made me angry. I wanted to hate him. He took me away from my mother and was going to force me to become this thing- a priest- and I didn't even know what that was.

I truly wanted to hate him...

But all I could do was stare blankly at him.

The maenad took my hand before bowing deeply to the king. "I thank you for your escort, my lord. We will begin the boy's training at once."

I took one last look at the king before the maenad dragged me away. It wasn't the last time I would ever see he him, but it was the last time I would ever see him smiling.

Because he was the king he had a role to play, just as I, as the boy who would be priest had duties to perform.

Inside the temple I was introduced to various maenads and acolytes. There were several rooms I was forbidden to enter, but for the time being, I was given silk robes to wear and escorted to bed.

So began my first night in that gilded cage that was my home.


End file.
